samurai

[schneefink]

My brain feels like puree, which makes sense because I had two lectures today and did a lot of studying (and I'm trying very hard not to think about why I couldn't have started doing that last week because that's not productive.) So normally I don't like talking about things that I barely know anything about, but I feel like rambling right now (also because I still have things to do later.)

Because of a Yuletide fic (still one rec post to come) I watched Youtube videos about Sengoku Jidai, the feuding samurai warlords period of Japan, and then read a couple of wikipedia articles, and it's fascinating. So much backstabbing! So many alliances and betrayals! Everyone had so many kids, the better to use them as political pawns, and everyone was related to everyone and still had them killed sometimes, must have been fun family dynamics. Humans are so weird. And terrible. History is horrifying and fun.
I don't think I'll delve much deeper into this period because it's, well, not very uplifting, but it was a fascinating glimpse. (Though if you have any recs for not-completely-tragic novels about some of the historical figures, in English...)

(Btw, the author of "Tales of the Otori" was a lot more blatant in borrowing from history than I'd suspected. Yaegahara, really.)

Comments

[momijizukamori]

If you want a fun, not-very-accurate version of the Sengoku era, the Sengoku Basara anime series are solid. Basically it's like 'let's compress the timeline some so more famous people are alive together, and then make it as over the top and shounen as possible'. And if you didn't wander into stuff about Date Masamune, look him up, because he's one of those larger-than-life historical figures who's absolutely fascinating.

[merit]

The hours I have spent on wikipedia going through various medieval genealogies.. fun topic and everyone was surprisingly more related than I had previously thought. And travelled further for marriages than I expected at the times. Another 'dark age' myth I guess.